Showcase your Aurora figure kits here!

[Mcdee]

Cool! Three questions:

1. What are those plastic boxes in which you have the kits stored? Are they intended for model kits?
Yes, they were made especially for the Aurora Long Boxes by a guy at the Clubhouse Forums named Dr. Syn,I bought over 40 of them! and they protect the kits from all kinds of damage!

2. Why do you have all those Guillotine kits? Are they all different variants in some way?
Yes again,2 of them are the Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors issue, Aurora was told by them to stop using their name and so these were very limited and as such rarer than the second( third from the left) and subsequent issues. Thr Kit second from the left is #0 (of I believe 100) signed by Tom Lowe from Polar Lights...I love collecting Varients of model kits!
3. When it comes to the original iisues, Godzilla's Go-Kart may be the toughest kit of them all to find. That's the only build-up I see though. Hopefully you built a re-issue.
3 Questions and 3 Yes answers...That build up is indeed a Polar Lights reissue...I couldn't bring myself to build an Original Godzilla's Go Cart....well... if I found another, I think I just might ...it would be cool to say tou did!

I also have a couple of Addams Family Haunted Houses MIB and a ton of Polar Light ones as well I Plan on building onr of the Originals soon
Cheers
Mcdee

[/color]

1Y

[Hepcat]

Aurora's entry into the monster model kit market came with a sensational bang since Universal's licencing of its classic monster movies to local television stations had created enormous pent-up demand for monster related items. Retailers could not keep up with the demand for the Frankenstein kit that was released in 1961 and Aurora added a second line to its manufacturing plant to increase production to 8000 Frankenstein kits per day!
 
The success of Frankenstein prompted Aurora to release twelve more "monster" kits over the next few years:
 
1962
 
Dracula
Wolfman
 
1963
 
Mummy
Creature
Phantom of the Opera
 
1964
 
Hunchback of Notre Dame
Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde
King Kong
Godzilla

1965

Witch
Bride of Frankenstein
 
1966
 
Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare
 
In response to the success Hawk and Revell were having with their Weird-Ohs and "Big Daddy" Roth Fink lines of model kits, Aurora released yet another six monster themed kits in 1966:
 
Frankenstein's Flivver
Dracula's Dragster
Wolfman's Wagon
Mummy's Chariot
King Kong's Thronester
Godzilla's Go-Kart
 
Although many purists argue that these latter six kits represented a cheapening of the Universal monster heritage, the kits nonetheless continued to feature quality box art by James Bama and have passed the test of time insofar as they're highly prized by collectors today.
 
Rather than continuing to release additional kits to a market that was arguably still hungry for new offerings, Aurora incomprehensibly took a sabbatical from the monster kits stressing other product lines instead. Aurora then in 1969 chose to try to revitalize its existing line of model kits with minimum investment by molding them partially from glow-in-the-dark plastic. The kits were marketed with the addition of a Frightening Lightning logo on the box. Surprisingly enough, the gimmick worked, so well that Aurora was forced to repackage the kits as "Glow-in-the-Dark" kits in new square boxes to eliminate confusion as to which of the previous long boxes came with glow-in-the-dark pieces. Gone though was James Bama's artwork as the new series of kits featured plain and unimaginative box art.



The Glow-in-the-Dark kits are nowhere nearly as highly prized now by collectors as a result.
 
It wasn't until 1971 that Aurora offered its next series of monster related models termed Monster Scenes:

Dr. Deadly
Frankenstein
Vampirella
The Victim
The Pain Parlor
The Hanging Cage
The Pendulum
Gruesome Goodies

While the new Monster Scenes line had promise at first glance as it featured the very popular Vampirella character, the quality of the Vampi cast was abysmal compared with Aurora's monster kit offerings from the early to mid-sixties. Worse yet, the kits were cheap Snap-Together models at which any self-respecting modeller sneered. Nor did the box artwork compare favourably with the earlier kits illustrated by James Bama. Sad for a company that had always been known for its box art.





Aurora promoted these kits as "Rated X ... for Xcitement and once again ran ads in the pages of DC comics for the new kits. The advertisement featured an anatomically correct Vampirella with visible camel toe.



Young boys were enthralled, but their mothers were appalled by both the kits and the advertising campaign. The Hysterical Mothers of America Opposed to Just About Everything installed the fear of God in Aurora's then parent General Mills with threats of a boycott of the company's cereal products and the Monster Scenes kits were swiftly dropped.

Aurora's final effort at monsters was the Monsters of the Movies line in 1975:

Frankenstein
Dracula
Wolf Man
Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde
Creature
Rodan
Ghidrah

While the casts were good and Rodan and Ghidrah were very welcome additions to the plastic model kit family, the kits were once again cheap Snap-Together things and the box art wasn't up to the quality standards to which Aurora fans had become accustomed in the sixties.



They flopped immediately.

To this day the Aurora monster model kit offerings up to and including 1966 featuring James Bama artwork are highly prized by collectors. The rest are more often than not just bought to be built, which is perhaps just as well since Rodan and Ghidrah have thus been freed from their cardboard constraints to spread their wings on shelves across the width and breadth of several continents.

 

[empty13]

it's all good. them was the days.

[Hepcat]

Aurora issued many other figure kits in addition to monsters. Included among these were the superheroes. Superman was the first. Here's the ad Aurora ran to promote this kit in DC comics:



When the Batman TV show exploded onto TV screens in late 1965, Aurora released a whole host of Batman related kits.

[Mcdee]

Hmmmm.....That superman ad sure looks familliar...

 
Mcdee

[nemesis1]

I love modern horror but my first love, my greatest love is the classics. I am 43 yrs old and recall when I was a kid late at night hiding my small screen telly under my blankets with the sound down low so my folks would not hear it whilst I watched such gems as Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, The Mummy etc. Great times.
Here is some of my collection, most are Aurora...

[Hepcat]

Cool! I like the way they're all in a jumble together by the "Famous Monsters" LP. Did you build the kits yourself?

 

[nemesis1]

Cool! I like the way they're all in a jumble together by the "Famous Monsters of Filmland" LP. Did you build the kits yourself?

 

Hi Hepcat, I did paint the kits myself it is the one true enjoyment I get I love the finished product. If I had more room they not only would not be jumbled together but would be behind glass.

[lappys22]

Nice collection and paint!

[Hepcat]

Here are a couple of shots of my superhero themed Aurora kits:





 

[Hepcat]

Here are some more of my Aurora model kits that are based on TV shows:









 

[Jethro]

I am glad to see someone started a thread on the model company that started it all for us. Everyone has great collections shown here.  I saw a "Dick VanDyke" episode the other night, the one when the F.B.I. agent played by Godfrey Cambridge was using Ritchie's room to conduct surveillance on a neighbor across the street.  In the room on a shelf was Aurora's Frankenstein, the Mummy, and King Kong.  On a dresser was the Wolfman and on a desk was the guillotine and at the end, Laura was moving the Bride of Frankenstein on to a shelf.  It didn't appear that any of them were painted.

[Wich2]

Here's an Original that I restored for Ebay a while back; I went for a "'60's kid did this" paint job.

[Gasport]

You totally NAILED IT,  Craig! I can almost smell the Testors glue and paint...[probably explains why i'm slightly dizzy!]

[Hepcat]

I went for a "'60's kid did this" paint job.

That's the way I think they should all be painted. After all, kits are for kids.